25.1 Employees are entitled to two weeks long service leave after each 10 years of continuous service as a salaried medical or dental practitioner in New Zealand (or with an overseas health organisation approved by the New Zealand government as part of a foreign policy programme).
25.2 Long service leave is to be taken in one continuous spell within five years of qualifying, except where an employee had an entitlement to long service leave under a previous employment agreement.
25.3 The employer will approve an equivalent cash payment to the surviving spouse (or estate) of a deceased employee who otherwise would have been eligible for this leave.
25.4 Where continuous service is interrupted by a period of post-graduate medical training overseas and where the employee has subsequently returned to employment in New Zealand, then such service will be regarded as continuous for the purposes of long service leave.
25.5 Employees who are eligible for long service leave at the date of retirement or resignation are entitled to the equivalent (e.g. one or two weeks) salary in lieu of leave.
25.6 The following transitional provisions apply:
(a) The employer shall continue to recognise long service leave entitlements for those employees who, as at 30 June 2017, still have entitlements under Schedule 3 of the Collective Agreement that expired on 30 June 2016 (the Schedule).
(b) For these employees, clause 25.1 above takes effect the day after those employees become eligible for their last leave entitlement under the Schedule (with the first leave entitlement under clause 25.1 being 10 years from that date).
(c) Employees who commence employment at a former DHB that had a current entitlement to long service leave at 30 June 2017, shall be entitled to leave as per clause 25.1, and will have their previous service recognised per clause 25.1 above.
(d) For employees who, as at 30 June 2017, had no entitlement to long service leave under the Schedule, service under clause 25.1 above will be recognised from 3 July 2017.